ITALY & WESTERN EUROPE 1646 JANSSON & HORN UNUSUAL ANTIQUE COPPER ENGRAVED MAP

Description: Striking and highly detailed interesting 1646 Georg Horn edition's of the Jan Jansson's copper engraved map that covers most of Europe, the western Mediterranean Sea, and the adjacent African coast. The map notes ancient place names, rivers, lakes, bays, reliefs and islands.

The map is based on the description by Frans van Haren. Frans van Haren (more commonly called Haraeus) was a theologian, historian, globe maker, and mapmaker from around 1615 to 1624. He prepared two maps centered on the Mediterranean Sea for Abraham Ortelius' classical atlas that described the world known to the ancients. This is Jansson's version of the western map from Georg Horn's classical atlas. It was engraved by Pieter van den Keere (Petrus Kaeius).

A strapwork title cartouche, a mileage scale and two ships adorn the map. French text on verso.

Date: 1646 ( undated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 60,1 x 49,8

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Map with chains and wiremarks. Map uncolored. Wide margins. Small foxing and browning. Small tears. Map folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images. 

Mapmakers: Joannes Janssonius (Arnhem, 1588-1664), son of the Arnhem publisher Jan Janssen, married Elisabeth Hondius, daughter of Jodocus Hondius, in Amsterdam in 1612. After his marriage, he settled down in this town as a bookseller and publisher of cartographic material. In 1618 he established himself in Amsterdam next door to Blaeu’s book shop. He entered into serious competition with Willem Jansz. Blaeu when copying Blaeu’s Licht der Zeevaert after the expiration of the privilege in 1620. His activities not only concerned the publication of atlases and books, but also of single maps and an extensive book trade with branches in Frankfurt, Danzig, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Koningsbergen, Geneva, and Lyon. In 1631 he began publishing atlases together with Henricus Hondius.
 
In the early 1640s Henricus Hondius left the atlas publishing business completely to Janssonius. Competition with Joan Blaeu, Willem’s son and successor, in atlas production prompted Janssonius to enlarge his Atlas Novus finally into a work of six volumes, into which a sea atlas and an atlas of the Old World were inserted. Other atlases published by Janssonius are Mercator’s Atlas Minor, Hornius’s historical atlas (1652), the townbooks in eight volumes (1657), Cellarius’s Atlas Coelestis and several sea atlases and pilot guides.
 
After the death of Joannes Janssonius, the shop and publishing firm were continued by the heirs under the direction of Johannes van Waesbergen (c. 1616-1681), son-in-law of Joannes Janssonius. Van Waesbergen added the name of Janssonius to his own.
 
In 1676, Joannes Janssonius’s heirs sold by auction “all the remaining Atlases in Latin, French, High and Low German, as well as the Stedeboecken in Latin, in 8 volumes, bound and unbound, maps, plates belonging to the Atlas and Stedeboecken.” The copperplates from Janssonius’s atlases were afterwards sold to Schenk and Valck.

Georg Horn (1620 - 1670) or has he was otherwise known, Georgius Hornius, is a Germany born historian and professor active in the central part of the 17th century. Hornius spent most of his life in Holland, where the cosmopolitan atmosphere offered him greater academic freedom. As an academic Hornius was known for his unconventional approach that encouraged looking at important historical events from multiple angles. He, for example, advocated the uncommon view that Attila the Hun was actually a much loved and beneficent ruler. Hornius composed a number of historical essays but is best known for composing the text to accompany Johannes Jansson's monumental mapping of the Holy Land in 1658. This six part map is today generally referred to as the "Hornius Map" in his honor. A number of other historical maps, also associated with volume VI of Jansson's Atlas Novus.
 
Pieter van den Keere (1571 - c. 1646) was a Dutch engraver and cartographer active in London and Amsterdam in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Keere, who is alternatively known as Kaerius or Coerius, was born in Gent, the son of printer and type founder Hendric van den Keere. Religious persecution in the Low Countries forced Keere, with many others, to take refuge in London, where they established themselves. There Keere married the sister of Jodocus Hondius, also a refugee in London, and it was most likely through Jodocus that he mastered engraving and mapmaking. Keere is responsible for numerous maps, most of which are associated with the Hondius firm. Some of his most notable works include numerous county maps of the British Isles that were later compiled into Camden's Britannia. Keere also engraved many of the maps included in the Jansson Atlas Minor.